“In some things we agree,” Mulder replied. “But we… my friends… share broader, more international interests “
“Just fine. Sunnier’n hell in July, Herman. Where we’re together, we’re together. Where we ain’t, we can wrassle later.” Outram sucked in a breath. “You seen what happened this morning? We’re gonna get a lot more of that: people who want things we… you ‘n’ me… don’t. Mebbe leftists, mebbe liberals, mebbe the minorities, mebbe the money men and the industrialists, mebbe the soldiers… like George here “He grimaced at the back of the driver’s head and cracked thick, splotched knuckles. “One thing’s sure: I ain’t givin’ the United States back to them who was ruinin’ it before. No more big-city lobbies, no more robbin’ good, hardworkin’ folks to please every ‘interest’ with its own row to hoe. No more sendin’ billions overseas to prop up mealy-mouthed little fuckers who spit on your hand even while they’re takin’ your cash!” Mulder uttered a noncommittal grunt.
“Can you deliver, Herman? Can your people help us organize? Help us fight? Help put the country back together?” Outram’s voice took on a resonant, sepulchral, organ tone. “You shoulda seen it: the dead piled in heaps twenty feet deep, the fires, the wreckage, the looters, the local bosses thinkin’ now they’re almighty warlords and buildin’ their own private armies. You’ll help, Herman! When you see what I seen, you’ll help. Whatever you and your folks believe, you’re still Americans. You’re prob’ly better Americans than the dribble-assed weaklings who got us into this mess in the first place!”
“Where were the regular troops?” Wrench wondered. “The police? The National Guard?”
“It happened so fast. Our guys were either busy or dead. A lot of our forces overseas we can’t get home… hell, some we ain’t even heard from yet! We still got units dealin’ with what’s left of the Russians, the Chinese, and the Middle East. Central America likewise. Japan’s hunkered down, waitin’ for either Pacov or Starak… or mebbe both. So’s Korea and Australia and other places.”
“India?” Lessing had to know.
“What about it? Rama-what’s-his-name has turned India into a Hindu dictatorship. No Pacov or Starak there yet… that we know of.”
“The missiles?” Mulder asked. “The space platforms?”
“’Tween us and the Russians, we got more shit up in the sky than God. We nearly had it all down in our laps too, last week. One more panicky Russkie with an itchy finger, and we’d have had fireworks up over the Pole. Thank God that Pacov took out almost all of their missile people and their chain of command.”
“And now…?”
“We’re both about done for. A helluva lot of our people lived in cities, Herman. We didn’t lose ’em all, but we did lose millions. And the rest’re shook outa their trees, so disorganized we can’t even get food and supplies to ‘em. Russia’s less citified, but Pacov hit harder than they hit us with Starak or whatever. Their casualties amount to somethin’ like eighty percent of their population… practically all of European Russia, lots of the central regions, the Caspian… Jesus!”
“Europe? Israel?”
“Britain’s seethin’ with Starak. Europe’s full of refugees, and Israel’s okay: busy blamin’ the Arabs and stompin’ Palestinians Shit, the Jews’re even threatenin’ to blow up Mecca and Medina it the Muslims don’t get peaceable fast.”
“Huh! They really must be feeling their oats, Lessing exclaimed The Israelis had left those two places as independent “international holy cities” to keep the rest of the Islamic world off their necks, he knew. He had fought out there and had a feel tor it.
Outram shot him a calculating look. “You know somethin’ about them parts, young man?” When Lessing nodded, the President said, “Then you’ll be useful later, if we kin get our butts through the next coupla weeks!”
“Again. How can we… my colleagues and co-workers… help…?” Mulder inquired.
“We got to fight whoever done this, Herman. God knows what the fuckers’ll do next. Then if we win we gotta rebuild. We gotta do the job right, or else next time some asshole’ll really push them buttons… in this country and in Russia! Then up goes the planet and us poor suckers down here won’t have a cow-pie left to stand.
The rapt looks on the faces of Wrench and Morgan told Lessing that Outram had charisma. That was why he had been elected every term since Lessing could remember — and why all of the liberal efforts to unseat him had failed. He spoke to the majority ol Americans in ways they understood: plam and direct, if nchly profane, to the menfolk, and courteously — “Old Time Cowboy — to the women.”
Lessing shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had heard too many speeches too many times before. There was more, much more, as they drove, all delivered in the same wide-open- spaces Western lilt. Lessing glanced over at the blank-faced driver and wondered just what George thought.
More to the point, what did he himself think? Outram’s message sounded close to Mulder’s: the good of one’s ethnos, one’s nation, one’s community. Do what you had to do to keep your own folks going. If that meant domination of other groups, then you tipped your hat and dominated, as peacefully, gently, and politely as possible. That was not “bad.” That was ethically and realistically right’. If domination had to come at the expense of smaller, less aggressive, or less successful groups, then so be it. 1 hat was the way things crumbled. Call it “realism” or call it “creative evolution in action.” Good-bye, dinosaurs! Good-bye, snail darter and dodo bird! Hello, enlightened self-interest!
And was that such a bad thing? It ran counter to the great religions, of course, and it didn’t jibe with liberal humanism either; yet Lessing knew that those time-honored institutions preached more than they practiced So it had been with his mother, and so it was in Angola, Syria, and India. So it was also in the United States, but hypocrisy had grown ever more sophisticated as the media learned how to present “reality” their way.
Enlightened self-interest did not imply cruelty or indifference; in fact, the world would benefit from it, now that the present system was in chaos and doomsday only a heartbeat away. The Party of Humankind promised to stop the crap and solve the gut-issues of food, war, jobs, overpopulation (maybe no longer!), pollution, and much else. The Party’s origins did not matter; who cared whether it arose from the SS, the Christian church, the Bangers, or the Abominable Snowman? What was important was that it offered a way up out of this current abyss. Pacov and Starak only made this message starker: humanity could no longer limp along from catastrophe to catastrophe. Indeed, the present crisis might already be the last.
Failure this time would be it. All. Terminus. The end. Welcome back to the Paleozoic!
Lessing himself wasn’t terribly interested. He had never joined any political organization, religion, or movement. Why bother? Let others wave the flags; he just did his job, quietly and without fanfare, until somebody paid him to go do something else.
The motel they found was minimally open. Word had spread that Colorado, with its missile sites and military bases, was a likely target for Starak and atomic warheads — as well as rampaging Banger gangs from the Los Angeles ghettoes. Refugees from both coasts and from Texas preferred to move on into Montana, the Dakotas, or up to Canada.
The tiny, hard-featured, old woman who ran the place gaped at the invading horde of limousines, uniforms, dark business suits, and bright ski-jackets. Then she stuck her gum under the counter and methodically went about stoking up the big coffee-um beside the grill.
Outram waved them all to “set.” To George, he added, “Fix us up with rooms tonight.”